WESTFIELD – When it comes to graduating students in four years economically, Harvard University may have to start billing itself the Westfield State College of the east.

Westfield State bested 23 other Massachusetts public and private institutions in a recent MassInc. study that – among other measures of college cost-effectiveness – ranked colleges by graduation rate per what an average student pays for tuition, costs, room, board, books and supplies.

Harvard finished second on the study’s scale of “graduation rate per dollar of expected net price.”

Others on top are the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Williams and Amherst colleges and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The study, titled, “Planning for College: A Consumer Approach to the Higher Education Marketplace,” concluded that “the choices families make in saving, selecting and paying for college have a considerable impact on the price they ultimately pay for a post-secondary degree.”

“It’s strong research that shows Westfield does more with less,” says Evan S. Dobelle, Westfield State College president.

One of the study’s authors, C. Anthony Broh, a Brookline-based consultant for colleges and universities, said his purpose was not to give one school bragging rights.

“But rather it was really to look at different ways that families make decisions about paying for colleges and the consequences,” Broh said in a telephone interview.

MassInc., formally known as the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, is a Boston-based, nonpartisan public-policy think-tank.

Melissa A. Kmon, a junior elementary education major from Holyoke, says she’ll graduate from Westfield State on time, an accomplishment which can be difficult to do given the practice-teaching requirements for her degree. She looked at colleges further from home, but chose Westfield State.

Westfield State’s four-year graduation rate is 42 percent, according to statistics kept by the U.S. Department of Education, and its six-year graduation rate is 59 percent.

Harvard’s graduation rate is 87 percent, Broh said, and very selective private institutions typically do graduate most if not all of their students.

Westfield improves its standing in the study, he explained, because the price an average student pays to go there, figuring in aid, is $12,514. That’s what Broh called the “expected net price,” or the average tuition, fees, room, and board less financial aid.

Harvard’s expected net cost is $27,574.

The study result that surprised him, though, Broh said, is the variation between Westfield State and colleges that are also part of the state-run higher education system in Fitchburg, Worcester and Salem.

“Given the relatively similar profile of incoming students to several other Massachusetts public colleges, the success of students obtaining their attempted degree (at Westfield State) is phenomenal,” Broh wrote in the report.

But, he said, Westfield State fared more poorly in other measures, such as the faculty-student ratio per “expected net price” where Salem State College came out on top.

Dobelle said selective universities get a chance to pick students who blossomed early in high school. At Westfield State, 14 percent of the freshman class is classified as special needs and 10 percent came from urban high schools and spent the summer in a “boot camp” getting ready for college work.

“Students work. Many are married. We meet them where they are in life,” Dobelle said.

Milagros Rivera, a 19-year-old sophomore criminal justice major from Springfield, said the summer urban education program helped her make the transition from the High School of Commerce to college-level work.

“I looked at other schools like UMass and Springfield College, but the costs are so much lower here,” she said of Westfield State.

Rivera said she has $3,000 in student debt now and hopes to graduate with less than $10,000 in debt.